


Homecoming

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 10:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2690234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaito tries, but it isn’t enough.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Life for the Tenjous isn't exactly family again. A few short moments where Kaito tries to re-navigate his life after his father returns. Mentions of implied VKai and KaiMiza.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

Kaito tries, but it isn’t enough.

The first time his control snaps is at breakfast. His morning ritual — silence, breakfast with Haruto, a quiet moment to spend with his brother before they both disperse for the day — is ruined. Dr. Faker sits at the kitchen table reading the news.

Haruto looks happy, sitting next to his father, and something in Kaito’s chest catches. He can’t stop the words that spill out of his mouth, “I’m surprised you’re still here,” he hears himself say and he watches Haruto’s face collapse.

Dr. Faker, at least, looks surprised and hurt and stands, “Kaito. . .”

“Don’t — “ don’t what, don’t get up, don’t leave, he can’t say either of those things even with Haruto’s eyes pinned on him like yet another weight, “Coffee?” Kaito asks instead. Dr. Faker sits down. He nods. Kaito makes two cups of coffee, even though they have a machine he does it by hand to buy himself time before he has to sit at the table. The table is only big enough for him to sit next to Faker or across from him.

Neither is a good option.

He sits across from his father, because at least then Haruto is to his right. There is a conspicuous absence to his left, the gap that none of them speak of.

“Good morning, Kaito.” His father says with a trembling smile that he wants to be angry about. Instead there’s only the same hollow crack in his defenses that started to crumble when Haruto frowned, earlier.

“Good morning, Dr. Faker.” Kaito replies and drinks his coffee. “Good morning, Haruto.” Haruto draws circles on the tabletop with his fingers. He’s disappointed. Kaito doesn’t bother to eat, he’s not sure he could choke down food when he can’t even form the words for a fake conversation that morning. He can’t stop watching Haruto’s fingers on the table, and he certainly can’t ignore the downcast expression.

All over again, he hates his father for taking his brother hostage, even if he didn’t mean to.

The second time his control breaks, Haruto isn’t in the room. He’s at school for the first time in a ever and Kaito wanted to go with him to check in on him but the proud independent tilt of his brother’s chin told him he wouldn’t be welcome. He still sends Orbital, though, to spy. Surely, Haruto expected at least that.

Dr. Faker is sitting on the couch and he’s flipping through old surveillance footage and news feeds. He’s watching old videos of Kaito.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Kaito doesn’t bother to hide the edge in his voice, this time. He stays at the doorway, not willing to enter the same room and at least, he has an excuse to raise his voice.

“I’ve missed a lot of your life, Kaito — “ his father starts, stops, has the shamelessness to look embarrassed, “I thought this would be a good way to catch up. We could — “

“No.” He’s furious and he doesn’t know why. When he saved his father Kaito forgave him, to an extent. If he had been in Faker’s place he would have done the same. Kaito would have moved as many worlds and sacrificed as many people as it took to keep Haruto alive. He didn’t have any right to be angry about it — but he was. “I want nothing to do with you.”

“You’re living under my roof,” it isn’t an admonishment, but some misguided attempt to bring them closer. Kaito doesn’t laugh — not quite — but there is something that weighs his voice down, makes it thick.

“Is that how it is.” He remembers, Dr. Faker never just held Haruto hostage, he employed Kaito’s skills too. Of course Kaito feels guilty to think of that, though, how could he think of himself when — because of Faker Haruto had — 

“Kaito, please.” It cuts through him, to hear his father beg. 

Kaito leaves.

He finds solace in the familiarity of Chris. There are moments when he remembers feeling abandoned and betrayed, like when Chris looks past Kaito, just over his shoulder. Or when Chris explains that he’s busy and leaves Kaito to awkwardly converse with his brothers. The youngest isn’t bad, there is a tangled sweetness that vaguely reminds Kaito of Haruto, there is something irrevocably wrong with III, but he has a gentle smile. The middle child Kaito often tries to ignore. He’s flashy, obnoxious and when Kaito studies him too much there’s a depth of filial piety that disgusts him. Of course, that’s how they all are.

Chris, at least, hides it a little.

They work on projects together, it doesn’t really matter what. Kaito feels comfortable under the gentle praise and cold directed orders. A touch at his elbow for a reminder, or entire weeks where Chris says nothing to him but directives. It’s easy, mindless and even when he was a hunter he was still following orders — Kaito is good at that.

Dr. Faker tries Kaito’s patience every day. He doesn’t even do anything but ghost through the house when Kaito is there. But it’s Haruto’s silent accusation, Haruto’s laughter around Faker, Haruto’s gleeful handhold with his father, that Kaito is frustrated with. He can’t afford to spend too much time away from the house, because then it will just be Haruto and Faker. Kaito won’t say it, but Faker knows it, he doesn’t trust him. He keeps expecting that some day he will return home and find Haruto screaming or Faker has gone mad again. 

Kaito promises himself, this time, he’ll kill his father before it goes too far.

They have family meals, because it’s something families do. When he has to sit to Faker’s immediate side Kaito spends the meal pushing his food around and trying to make conversation with Haruto. It’s only when he sits across from Faker that he engages.

“How was your day, Kaito?”

“It was fine.” A beat. “And yours?”

“It was wonderful. Haruto taught me a game, it’s a little like chess.”

“I bet he won,” it’s petty, the satisfaction he has at saying that, but Haruto grins and nods and also looks pleased.

“Father is still learning, maybe we could all play together sometime.” Haruto hopes.

Kaito’s smile is so brittle it hurts his mouth. “Sure,” because he can never say no to Haruto.

Mizael is one part challenge and one part guilt and four parts pride and that’s why Kaito finds him just as comfortable as Chris. There’s nothing routine about Mizael and there is no way that they will spend any time together without something being said. There is an inverse in how Mizael is compared to Chris. Kaito puzzles over it, one afternoon, but can’t make heads or tails of it.

And, Mizael’s complaints about school are funny.

“This is a waste of a second chance.” Mizael thumps the table with his fist. Kaito, who has never gone to school, doesn’t really think it’s so bad. The math work that Mizael has is something Kaito could do easily, and he’s somewhat surprised that an ancient alien didn’t acquire some amount of knowledge over time.

Though, he does think back to what he knows of the other Barians, and decides that they probably didn’t have a lot of uses for advanced math.

“You could have taken intermediate math,” Kaito points out. He went over the school system before Haruto enrolled, and before he deemed it useless for himself. The observation makes Mizael’s brow twitch, his lip curls.

“As if I would lower myself to remedial studies.” 

It makes Kaito smile, lightly. There is something very dependable about Mizael’s pride, something very dependable about Mizael. They haven’t dueled since the moon, but Kaito doesn’t particularly want to either. Even though he refound his desire to duel against Yuma, after his father, it’s still far too much like a weapon to aim at Mizael again. Especially, perhaps, because of the moon. Mizael hasn’t challenged him either, though Kaito suspects it has more to do with that singular thread of guilt.

Which, he doesn’t get. He had no regrets, then. It’s only after being alive, again, that regret has been a constant in his life.

Kaito takes Haruto to the park on the weekend, he asks — he has to ask, because their father is living in their house and because that’s what any son would do — if they could go alone. He has to admit that he needs the time to talk to Haruto in private, outside of the walls and obligation owned by his father. Dr. Faker only agrees, meekly, as he does to all of Kaito’s requests. It’s disgusting and irritates Kaito in a way that his bitterness doesn’t explain. Haruto is also uneasy, but knows enough of Kaito’s stiff expression and the way he stands when he makes the request — like he’s challenging Faker to a duel — to not argue.

“Are you happy?” Kaito asks, when they get to the park that is so far from their little forest getaway, but is the closest he has found in the city.

Haruto gives him a look. It’s that far seeing look that made Kaito wonder what his brother sees in the stars, the same look that is far too old for his face. It breaks him, a little, because he knows that it’s a look that came from suffering.

“I’m trying to be.” And the reply is just as bad.

He can’t do anything but gather Haruto in his arms and hold on. It’s unfair to use his little brother as an anchor but he refuses to let go. Not until the turmoil in his chest has let him go and let him breathe normally again.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he is. It’s the first time that he’ll have to refuse a request from Haruto — but it’s the second time that he will have failed him. Or the third. Or the fifteenth. Twenty-seventh. How many failures does letting Haruto get kidnapped count? How many is per scream? How many for each time Haruto looked out the window at Heartland and only saw the burning stars of the Astral world? Every time he lets go of Haruto something happens. Someday, Kaito fears, he’ll let go and Haruto will never return.

“Will you promise to try?”

It’s unfair for Haruto to ask him that and a small spark of anger fizzles and dies as soon as its born.

“Yeah, I’ll try. He’s not so bad, is he?” Kaito hears himself say, feels himself pull back and stand up and give Haruto that lopsided reassuring smile he cultivated over the years. But his back aches and it feels like he’s gone Numbers hunting again.

Haruto’s smile could light up the world. It eases the weight on his chest, a little.

Then, they have to go home.


End file.
